Horrifying footage showing the moment two villagers dug up an abandoned newborn boy who was mistakenly buried alive has emerged, and it’s just as disturbing as you’d think.
The footage, taken on August 21, led to a police investigation which found the family had buried the newborn baby after he had ‘stopped breathing’ and had ‘died’.
Watch the shocking discovery below::
Nanbaita Village residents Jiao Xinglu and Zhou Shangdong were gathering mushrooms on the outskirts of the city of Laiwu, in East China’s Shandong Province, when they came across the buried newborn that morning.
Mr Jiao recalled:
Zhou Shangdong and I found him on August 21 while picking mushrooms in the mountains. We heard a noise like a dog barking.
As more of their friends and family arrived, the group suspected there was a child underground and decided to dig for the baby when his crying grew faint and eventually stopped altogether.
A video taken on the day shows Mr Jiao frantically digging at the loose soil with his bare hands before later finding the cardboard box containing the boy.
Local doctor Zhou Shanghong then opens the box and begins examining the tiny boy she finds inside, the clip shows.
Authorities have since said the boy was found on a hillside on the border of Laiwu and the neighbouring city of Tai’an.
He was transferred to the Second Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital of Shandong’s provincial capital of Jinan for treatment.
Weighing just 3.4lbs, the boy was found to be suffering from anaemia and jaundice, but he had no congenital conditions and has since recovered to full health.
Doctor Zhao Lei said of the now two-month-old boy now weighs a healthy 8.8lbs.
On October 20, just three days after local police announced they were still trying to track down the child’s family, a man who identified himself as the boy’s grandfather showed up at Tai’an’s Yangliu police station.
The local resident, named as Mr Liu, shocked the police when he admitted he and his family had buried the boy – the younger of twin brothers – when the child had ‘died’ just a day after he was born.
He was stunned to see the boy had ‘come back to life’ on the local news and decided to tell the police.
Mr Liu said:
After he was born in hospital, he relied on a respiratory machine to breathe. He had a serious lung infection and couldn’t breathe on his own.
He died on the second day. He couldn’t drink or eat. After he died, we buried him.
I didn’t know he was alive. I was very surprised, shocked, too.
I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m happy and sad at the same time.
Local authorities said they were still investigating Mr Liu’s claims.
The grandfather said the boy’s older twin brother was healthy.
Zhou Shanghong, the doctor and mum-of-two who examined the boy after he was found, had previously said she would apply to adopt the boy if his family were not found. It’s unknown who will care for the baby now his family has been located.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.